This month’s theme, rather desperately, is hats. Now, I realize that the helmet the Penitent One wears in Blasphemous isn’t so much a hat as it is a barbed wire vuvuzela of stinging Catholic guilt. But it’s all the excuse I needed to talk about the sort of game that makes Warhammer 40K’s Imperium of Man look like a Christian line-dancing troupe.
Blasphemous is horrible, in a way that makes even Dark Souls seem cheerful. At least in Lordran you’ll eventually stumble on a jolly, rotund knight or cackling shopkeeper. In Cvstodia, the best you can hope for is giant babies sobbing blood or floating heads with the flesh sloughing off their faces. But there’s something deeper about Blasphemous’ fervent misery that makes it more grueling. Everyone and everything seems to be in pain. Even the act of healing is upsetting, forcing you to smash vials of blood in your face. It shouldn’t feel that weird, given that many folk in Western countries grew up metaphorically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, but it absolutely does. And, in fact, perhaps that’s why the game is more unsettling than flat-out horror fare like The Evil Within: there’s a cultural familiarity here that gives everything a sense of inescapable dread. The result is something that feels like chancing upon a frightening Doré bible as a child: a mix of guilt, horror, curiosity, and thrilling confusion. The Metroidvania construction keeps you wanting to push further on. Thematically, then, it’s a sinful pleasure, even if the platforming and balance of attacks isn’t always quite 74 so satisfying.